Dream Shoppe
by Nakimochiku
Summary: In which a medicine seller and a witch discuss business, and a boy looks on in confusions.  xxxHolic and Mononoke cross over  oneshot, enjoy.


Dream Shoppe

The witch met the medicine seller in her drawing room. She looked displeased. The boy watched the medicine seller, watched the witch. He looked confused. The medicine seller watched the smoke of her pipe. He looked unaffected. Smoke coiled about her face, and her eyes settled on his pack, the painted eye on the dark wood staring back.

The medicine seller seemed to smile at her.

"I think…" he said in a deep purr, and if his voice had a scent it would be cedar wood and old things. Beneath his painted smile, his teeth were sharp and glinting. The witch's brows furrowed. "I'm interrupting. You must excuse me."

He stood, and heaved the pack up onto his back, geta flopping a little against the tatami mats.

"Wait." the witch called. The medicine seller did. And the boy looked on in interest, eyes wide. Somehow, he felt this was something private. This was something between gods. Demi gods. Demons. Not humans. Everything but humans. The medicine seller did not turn to her.

His painted face seemed wicked.

"Why are you here?"

He didn't immediately answer, seemed almost as though he hadn't heard. The witch's frown deepened, but she didn't repeat her question. "I was walking by. And I sensed something. So I came to look." the answer was so simple. But it curled out of his mouth like the smoke the witch blew through pursed lips. The boy could see them. But they were not black with lies.

Cold blue gray eyes turned to him.

They seemed amused.

"This was not a coincidence." the witch declared, lifting her chin.

"Indeed." the medicine seller agreed, sharp teeth flashing.

"This was…"

"Fate."

The boy, confused, wondered who they were, what they were capable of, why they seemed to smile and laugh and snarl and bicker at the same time. Why their mouths were so sharp. He wondered why they were made of the same brutally truthful substance. Why they looked like they were going to kill each other.

"The thing in the bottom drawer. Show it to me."

The medicine seller turned to the witch then, and pulled out an elaborate set of scales from the bottom drawer of his pack, silver blue and pink and glinting. It stood and bowed to her, bells chiming cheerfully. His sharp, coy smile became sharper, and the boy imagined one could slice through flesh with that smile.

"What…. will you give me in return?"

A long, pausing, fluctuating silence. The witch considered the scales from where she sat. she scanned his pack once more, eying the top drawer, which rattled as her eyes fell on it. The boy watched the top drawer too, wondered what the medicine seller carried within that held the witch's interest.

"Form, truth, regret." she murmured.

"Fate." he replied. And if the answer wasn't fitting, no one mentioned it. His makeup lined eyes narrowed, and he smiled, small and mysterious. With a flick of long, delicate fingers, the scales floated over to the witch. He held the pose for a long moment before his fingers curled one by one, into a fist.

The witch caught the scales on her finger, and looked and the silver, gold blue, pink. She seemed to smile, even as the medicine seller took off his pack and sat once more.

"Watanuki." the witch called, and held up the scales. The boy stumbled over himself to answer, and ran to her side, casting glances at the medicine seller who gave him a flash of teeth and a flash of eyes, head inclined in greeting. "put this is the store room."

"Y-yes." he answered, and backed out of the room, leaving the two demons grinning at each other. He ran noisily down the hall, teeth grit, brows furrowed. "Geez, I didn't get that at all. Why did they look so angry?" he didn't know. He couldn't say. He left the scales standing on a dark shelf, nestled between an empty picture frame and a bejewelled chest.

When he returned, the witch and the medicine seller sat side by side, staring at the crescent moon through the open sliding doors, each with a cup of sake, each with their own laugh.

"The moon tonight…." the medicine seller whispered, and sent the witch a twisted smile. "is quite beautiful." she cheered her agreement, and took a large gulp of sake, eyes falling on the boy, face red, the color reflected in her kimono.

"Come Watanuki, this guy can hold his liquor!"

If the boy hadn't seen the sharp smiles and cruel glances of before, he would never have known they weren't friends. "How can they just switch sides like that?" he shouted. And before the witch could ask, he went to make snacks, grumbling all the way.

In the darkness of the storage room, the scales stood, two bells dropping simultaneously with an echoing chime.

Then, tipped to one side.


End file.
